The present invention relates to improvements in flute headjoints and headjoints for flute type instruments.
In this specification the term flute shall refer to thin-wall flute type instruments including flutes and piccolos, as well as flutes and piccolos which are hybrids between thin-wall and historic wall instruments.
The headjoint of a flute has a critical effect on the performance of the instrument. Even though the headjoint is mechanically simple, and does not even have any moving parts, it is an acoustically active body which can determine, and limit, the performance of the flute.
Various parameters characterize flute acoustic quality. These include upper and lower register performance and purity of tone. Typically, compromises must be made in the headjoint design in order to obtain an acceptable balance among these parameters. For example, upper register performance can be improved by making the blow hole height slightly shorter, but this will also result in a degradation of the lower register performance. Tonal quality can be improved by proper selection of the blow hole cross section and height, but it can be difficult to obtain good tonal quality across the entire range of the flute.
Various techniques have been tried in order to improve headjoint quality and flute performance. U.S. Pat. No. 3,866,507 issued Feb. 18, 1975 to J. R. Eajardo discloses a flute headjoint having a non-circular interior cross section with non-uniform wall thickness, and the blow hole canted relative to the radial dimension of the headjoint tube. If the blow hole is canted toward the air flow generated during flute play, then the blow hole wall beneath the blow edge will be longer than in the conventional blow hole design at the expense of the blow hole height beneath the lip edge. On the other hand, if the blow hole is canted away from the air flow to shorten the blow hole wall beneath the blow edge, this will be at the expense of the blow hole height beneath the under the lip edge. Either approach is a compromise which would be desirable to avoid.
Another technique for headjoint improvement is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,896,579 issued Jan. 30, 1990 to J. P. Goosman. The disclosed headjoint has a conventional blow hole but seeks to reduce extraneous noise by a modified lip plate which the patent asserts channels away air which does not enter the blow hole. The part of the lip plate downstream from the blow hole is divided into two lobes which the patent describes as channelling the air flow between them. This structure cannot alter the inherent tonal range determined by the conventional blow hole.
It is an object of the invention to provide a flute headjoint with an improved range, and without loss of tonal quality.
It is another object of the invention to provide a flute headjoint with an improved range, and which retains the mechanical simplicity of conventional flute headjoints.